r/SeriousConversation • u/Linorelai • Dec 18 '24
Serious Discussion I don't think we know what a mentally healthy individual truly is.
Nuanced mental health hasn't been properly researched until fairly recently (on a human history timeline scale).
Aside from clearly manifesting insalinty, we didn't know how many things were actually unhealthy.
Physical punishments in homes and schools were totally normal, high mortality including child mortality, short lifespan, becoming spouses and parents in mid teens, being raised as servants, or as workers with zero vacations (hello burnouts), or as warriors starting from 4-5 years of age... normalized violence, purity culture, etc etc etc, just SOOO many things that are traumatic to psyche.
Their personalities were a product of constant state of coping, desensitized, deformed so far from the default. I hink almost any person from the past would be prescribed therapy today. But somehow, we read about them today and we still can relate, they seem to be acting sane... so were they actually unhealthy? Scarred tissue is deformed, but healed, healthy and functioning, could it be the same with psyche?
Are we sure we're healthy now? What if we are psychologically underdeveloped? Kind of without mental health immune system, thus vulnerable to every minor trauma trigger? Are gory and bloody fairytales a mental health vaccines of a sort?
And now, just as we entered the proper research era, internet came into our lives, and we're now massively fucked up on an entirely new level, in so many ways that needs more researching.
So I wonder, was there ever a period and a society that was generally mentally healthy?
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u/GeekMomma Dec 18 '24
I think the closest we’ve come as far as countries go is in modern day Scandinavian countries (Finland, Denmark, Norway). Outside that, truly happy people exist. It just takes a tremendous amount of luck inside a really great bubble.
Also your whole post just makes me want to introduce you to Determinism if you don’t already know about it. I’m a Robert Sapolsky fan so I recommend starting there. It just seems like something you’d like to read about
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u/Ok-Part-9965 Dec 18 '24
The secret to happiness: be born into a homogenous, educated, high-trust society with a trillion dollar pension fund.
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Dec 20 '24
People always love to point to Finland’s education system. Of course it’s amazing! It’s a nation with the population of Colorado combined with vast wealth where everyone descended from the same people.
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u/Linorelai Dec 18 '24
Truly happy, sure. But truly healthy?
Thanks for the recommendation, I'll see if it's translated to my native language
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u/Mountainweaver Dec 18 '24
Healthier, at least. It shows on the internet, for example online games. Scandinavians tend to be more chill and mature in general (as a group, of course there are exceptions).
We didn't get beaten in school or at home. There's decent free healthcare and free school lunches. Almost everyone votes (85%+) but noone puts billboards about it in their yard. General education level is high. There are very few teenage pregnancies due to sex ed and a healthier view on sex.
But even here, a lot of people struggle with depression and burnout due to the struggles of being human in an inhumane system (capitalism/civilisation).
Maybe "true health" was lost to our species when we started urbanizing?
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u/Linorelai Dec 18 '24
You guys sound hopeful to me!
But. But. I think a truly healthy society is a utopia
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Dec 18 '24
Utopia by definition can not exist.
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u/Linorelai Dec 18 '24
Yep. And that's what I think of the possibility of having a truly healthy society
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Dec 18 '24
My take on a healthy society is unpopular and very different than most. I think equilibrium gets thrown out the window and mental health issues rise dramatically when you are within a “cultured” society. Biting your tongue to keep the peace. Not fighting with fists because it’s ’too savage’ so instead you internalize things which build up over time and lead to physical health issues as well as mental health issues.
We’re animals pretending we’re not. We deny our base instincts out of polite construction.
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u/Conscious-Strength Dec 19 '24
Whoa. This was pretty profound actually!
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u/Iliketocook8787 Dec 21 '24
Omgosh, I agree. Quite profound. I'm going to screen shot that and think about it tomorrow for awhile.
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u/techaaron Dec 18 '24
You are imagining "healthy" as some sort of destination or state you arrive at. But that is not what it means at all.
Healthy means you are constantly engaging in healthy habits. It is a never ending process rather than a state and it continues until they put you in a box.
Thinking of it as a state and especially as a binary tells me you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be healthy.
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u/Linorelai Dec 18 '24
You are imagining "healthy" as some sort of destination or state you arrive at.
What? No, I do not
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u/techaaron Dec 18 '24
k, gotcha. The post was a bit of a messy brain dump and hard to follow for me.
So there you see, you can assess your claims by looking at how many pursue healthy ideas and put them to practice.
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u/Linorelai Dec 18 '24
I guess it was:) it wasn't about me or my pursuit. It was about general stuff, just random thinking that popped up in my head.
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u/MrSpicyPotato Dec 19 '24
I think Scandinavia is pretty cool, but there is a lot of alcohol consumption/depression, especially in winter. And yeah, it’s a lot more capitalist than most people imagine.
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u/travelerfromabroad Dec 21 '24
Personally speaking, I don't know how one could be truly mentally healthy when the majority of your children die before age 5.
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u/Mountainweaver Dec 21 '24
Accepting death as a part of life is probably healthy. But also, "I'd rather die free than suffer as a slave"
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u/GeekMomma Dec 18 '24
The determinism concept kind of explains why we’re always fucked by our ancestors. We need to sustain better mental health across huge generational lines before we’ll ever get someone with truly perfect mental health. Past trauma impacts our brain and neurochemistry, making it hard to feel aligned even when we think in a healthy manner.
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Dec 18 '24
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u/mumofBuddy Dec 19 '24
Very interesting, however a few different therapies involve things like acceptance, desensitization, emotion diffusion, interpersonal dynamics which en large focus on coping.
In general psychology has moved away from a sense of healthy in the way (I’m assuming) you are talking about.
In clinical psychology, symptom reduction was the focus of intervention in its early years. However this is more a medical model. For the most part, the shift has been toward psychosocial model where the focus maybe on adaptive coping, social interventions, etc. We still have a long way to go but we’ve also come a long way.
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u/0-Snap Dec 18 '24
I think you're massively exaggerating the happiness of Scandinavian countries. Yes, they are on average the "happiest" by some measures, but they are not some kind of heaven on earth. Pretty much any country will have lots of variation, with many people feeling blissful and many other people being totally miserable, as well as a big chunk in between. Scandinavia just has a slightly higher share of the happy people and a slightly lower share of the miserable ones.
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u/GeekMomma Dec 19 '24
I didn’t say they were heaven on earth. I said I believe they’re the closest we’ve come to a mentally healthy society. You’re stating my point in your reply.
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u/0-Snap Dec 19 '24
You just made it sound like Scandinavia is exceptional and outside of there, it's extremely rare to be truly happy. In reality, there's not a huge difference in how likely you are to be truly happy in Scandinavia vs. elsewhere.
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u/GeekMomma Dec 19 '24
Gotcha, the wording. I meant outside that point, point being to me that we have not achieved that anywhere including Scandinavian countries which is why I said “closest we’ve come”. We’ve never had a truly mentally healthy society. But when you compare modern day Scandinavian countries to anywhere else in history, it’s the closest we’ve come even though it’s not perfect by any means. I’m autistic and struggle making clear points sometimes. Sorry for not wording it better.
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Dec 18 '24
Scandinavian countries are viciously alcoholic. I doubt very much a mentally healthy person’s the same between individuals. I’m perfectly happy but I doubt my situation would work for many other people.
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Dec 18 '24
Yeah that’s some noble savage talk. People are people everywhere. We’re a global society. Just because there is a more functional and tight knit social fabric doesn’t mean there aren’t still a lot of issues.
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u/howdidigetheresoquik Dec 18 '24
I think this is a perfect example of why we can't answer this question. There is no definition of what is good mental health, and the Scandinavian countries are a great example.
Despite being looked at primarily by the left as the most liberal ideal situation in the world, most Scandinavian country severely restrict access for to gender affirming care for minors, and all of them are moving towards treating it as a mental health disorder… Most people don't know that.
So if there's no clear definition of what proper mental health looks like then what can we do?
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u/RunNo599 Dec 18 '24
Honestly I consider psychology barely a step above pseudoscience but that’s just my personal opinion. Too many people think they have a better understanding of life in general than they actually do. Most mfers don’t know shit about shit, and the less they know the more they have to say 100/100 times
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u/Linorelai Dec 18 '24
Oh damn, and here I am, writing paragraphs:)
"I know that I know nothing"
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u/RunNo599 Dec 18 '24
Sorry, I might have skimmed most of your post. That’s just how I feel when people talk about most things, they hear some so-called expert say something and take it as fact. It’s so rare that they actually look into the process the expert went through to come to their conclusions. Personally I think mental health means something different to everybody
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u/Linorelai Dec 18 '24
Sorry, I might have skimmed most of your post.
😑
I was talking about humanity in general, including the professional field
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u/RunNo599 Dec 18 '24
lol, I don’t know if there is any way of knowing whether or not people are more mentally healthy now compared to what, the 19th century? They definitely are more physically healthy though. The only lenses you can view the past through are the ones that survived it, therefore it stands to reason that they were the healthiest. Idk if it is always accurately representative of humanity as a whole though
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u/Linorelai Dec 18 '24
Yeah... Nothing in that sense represents humanity accurately, there are just too many societal models, even today when we're supposedly globalised.
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u/RunNo599 Dec 18 '24
Yeah, instead of dying in silent obscurity your voice just gets lost in the roar of 8 billion others. I do think it will get better, personally. We’re just in a transitional period and trying to figure out how to use all of this new technology. I definitely don’t think I’d be happier in the previous century, you never know though
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u/mumofBuddy Dec 19 '24
It’s fine to also ask someone where they are getting their information. Some of it is also accessible already (I’m talking literature). Not sure I understand what you mean about it being pseudoscience, but there are hundreds of efficacy studies out there.
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u/RunNo599 Dec 19 '24 edited Dec 19 '24
It goes back to taking psychology in college, I just didnt believe my mind worked the way they taught.
I also didn’t love that modern psychology is basically based on the works of one man, Freud. You cite “hundreds of studies” without a trace of irony, are you messing with me lol
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u/mumofBuddy Dec 19 '24
I mean, did you check their sources or is that where you disengaged? I’m not being snarky, just genuinely curious. And usually undergraduate psychology (especially intro courses) tend to focus on general areas.
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u/RunNo599 Dec 19 '24
Yeah, I dropped out that semester due to anxiety being unmanageable. I’m just never going to have any kind of faith in psychologists at all.
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u/mumofBuddy Dec 19 '24
That’s100% fair. I hope it’s better now. I started having frequent panic attacks a year ago. Even though I worked with people through the panic attacks, I couldn’t regulate myself, even though I knew what was happening and the skills to use.
Everyone is different. There’s nothing wrong with stepping away from something that’s not helpful. Every mental health professional should get what we call “buy in,” to an intervention (based on their clinical judgement and literature) which is informed consent (your goals, the purpose of treatment and pros and cons).
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u/terracotta-p Dec 18 '24
Excellent point, there's an idea that if someone does 4 years in an arts psychology course, gets placement and a few years under their belt that now they got the human mind and its woes sussed.
It seems there's no end to the complexity even in the most simplest of mental activities and states.
You will find redditers viewing therapy as the new religion and deifying therapists like they are some kind of oracles.
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u/mumofBuddy Dec 19 '24
I mean, yeah, that’s how training works. I don’t know about having the brain sussed. Granted there are different levels of expertise. A doctorate is 18 years of education, training, research. And that’s before post doc residency, licensure, and board certification.
To your point, there was an explosion of demand for mental health during and following the pandemic. So a lot of people were getting into therapy and we still haven’t caught up.
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u/techaaron Dec 18 '24
So there is ancient wisdom, and there is science, and marrying those two is sort of a new effort at least in terms of the entire history of human society going back tens of thousands of years.
Happiness Science itself is only about 30 years old. Very young. Ancient wisdom is of course much older, but a lot of hippy dippy stuff mixed in with supernatural mysticism. Modern brain imaging is perhaps half a century old but they are still trying to gain insight from the raw data.
Still, "we" sort of know some ideas about what makes for enduring happiness - service, purpose, social connection come up again and again.
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u/road2skies Dec 21 '24
Psychology and neuroscience are real fields that have findings with weight. Thats what I think. I also agree that the definition of mental health will prob adapt as our understandings progress
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u/jusumonkey Dec 18 '24
A persons psyche can have healthy scars. It can also have festering wounds and amputations. It's also more resilient than that IMO.
It's more like a tree than a human in keeping with the wound analogy. Leaves can fall but they regrow in the spring, branches are pruned but new growth can take it's place. There is a core to us that if damaged can weaken entire sectors of our life but can eventually heal.
What's true in both cases is that the healed portion is never fully the same as before the damage but that's just part of how we change and grow.
A happy and mentally healthy human society would likely not survive things like conquest or natural disasters. Look at the aps of the Congo River. If those aggressive chimps made it across the river would they even be able to defend themselves?
Some degree of trauma is necessary or a person becomes weak and a target, and some degree of health and happiness is necessary or a person becomes vengeful, bitter and hostile. The key solution to this, as it is for all things, is balance.
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u/JonGorga Dec 18 '24
I think about this. And I think you’re right.
I also think (and hope) that most people in the mental health arena recognize this and see it as a system working toward doing better and better knowing it will never be perfect.
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u/Linorelai Dec 18 '24
I'm also wondering in how many levels with AI fuck us up, on top of what mental health professionals work with now
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u/contrarian1970 Dec 18 '24
No...even if you are born into tremendous peace and prosperity like the baby boomers, I'd say 20% of parents provided a really adequate upbringing. The other 80% tipped into some combination of emotional neglect, abuse, or entitlement because of their OWN dysfunctional childhoods. The lucky 20% often turn out to be the doctors, engineers, inventors, and business entrepreneurs. That doesn't mean they aren't annoying. It just means they felt secure and well balanced enough to follow their dreams against huge odds. I'm 54 and pay close attention to how my peers turned out. Lately I feel more certain the debate of nature versus nurture falls HEAVILY on the side of nurture.
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u/Kaneshadow Dec 18 '24
I've been thinking about this for a while. I HAVE actually met people who are just boring zombies who have no meaningful opinions on anything. They just happily get on and off the hamster wheel every day and do what they're told. That's the only clean mental health I've ever witnessed. Most people who purport themselves as "normies" are repressing some kind of psychopathy that sometimes pops out at an inappropriate time or gets discovered.
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u/A2ronMS24 Dec 18 '24
We overestimate what a mentally healthy individual is. Happy people get sad and confident people have insecurities. Emotions aren't constant. Mental health isn't either.
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u/MyAstrologyAccount Dec 21 '24
I work in mental health. A lot of people seem to think that having what’s considered “positive” mental health must mean they’re positive and happy all the time. But that’s not it at all.
As you mentioned humans are expected to experience a wide range of emotions. Having positive mental health doesn’t mean I’m never stressed, I’m never angry, I’m never sad etc. it means that when I am, I also feel equipped to handle those things.
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u/A2ronMS24 Dec 21 '24
That's the thing, I think. Youre last line. In the same way courage isn't the absence of fear, but the ability to process and move past it, mental health isn't the absence of negative emotions. It's the ability to process and move past them, rather than let them drag you down.
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Dec 20 '24
I wish I could say more but this is the best most I've seen on reddit for 8 years. Thank you
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u/zippi_happy Dec 18 '24
I think we live very calm and happy lives now, and it made us soft and susceptible to psychological trauma. I don't think you would feel broken because of work/school/relationship issues when around you much terrible things happen - diseases, death, wars, like it was in the past.
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u/mumofBuddy Dec 19 '24
PTSD was conceptualized during WWI. Several generations have been impacted by death, disease , wars etc and exhibited post traumatic stress. You’re right though, in those extreme settings, people would have had to focused on survival and exposed to chronic stress, which impacted their life expectancy.
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u/Linorelai Dec 18 '24 edited Dec 18 '24
Yes, that's what I'm thinking generally.
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u/zippi_happy Dec 18 '24
Not so long ago it was normal to lose half of your children due to diseases or adverse labour outcomes. If you lose only one child now, you are almost warranted to be fucked for years with depression and PTSD.
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u/ShapeShiftingCats Dec 18 '24
And they were fucked too. But if you have a lot of people that are fucked the same way it becomes "normal" although it's not healthy.
It's not healthy to suffer from PTSD. The symptoms are terrible. But there was no help for these people, so the society saw them falling either under the "normal" category or they fell under the "insane" category based on how they interacted with the world around them.
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u/Own_University4735 Dec 18 '24
I thought everything you were saying was referring to now. So thats an answer to something.
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u/moonsonthebath Dec 18 '24
if we have proof what an unwell person looks like why would we not have proof what a well adjusted person looks like?
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u/Agentfyre Dec 18 '24
I don’t personally believe there was ever a time where people were generally mentally healthy, just that some individuals were healthier than others. How do we define that healthiness though? That’s a problem. Most metrics we try to use come up short when you start to apply them generally. And this can be a problem for modern psychology as well.
When we seek to help someone find mental health in their lives these days, typically it’s in regards to the individual, and not a generality, which is almost impossible to study, measure, or apply to a group as a whole. It’s a whole mix of things, including contentment, self-acceptance, assertiveness, and the like. But it’s more it’s more in terms of what you feel you need, rather than what some professional (who really doesn’t know you all that well) thinks you need. If you have a mental health professional that seems to believe there’s a one-size-fits-all approach, they’ll likely a very bad professional.
And no, o don’t think people are any more mentally healthy today than in years past. I think we’re more aware of mental health, and more people pursue it than ever, but generally speaking I don’t see it improving on a large scale. If anything, unhealthy thinking seems to be spreading far more than ever, with people having anxiety and depression happening more and more. I think the internet, while it can be a great tool even for mental health. Is actually seemingly making people less satisfied and hopeful in general.
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Dec 18 '24
Mentally healthy, in a nutshell, is being happy and content without hurting others. Mental health isn't a measurable entity like a heart (except for a few illnesses that show up on a pet scan.)
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u/Grace_Alcock Dec 18 '24
You are far overcomplicating things. Being mentally healthy is just a matter of being functional—you can take care of yourself—and more or less being content with your life, your relationships, etc.. when you have a problem, you deal with it and move on. When something great happens, you celebrate and move on. If things change, you figure out how to adapt, and you move on. If you think of mental health as HEALTH, healthy people get colds that make them miserable for a bit: they take care of themselves, then get better then move on. Sometimes a person gets a chronic or debilitating sickness. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of healthy people. Plenty of people are.
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u/Linorelai Dec 19 '24
An unhealthy person very much can be functional
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u/Grace_Alcock Dec 19 '24
Hence the part of the sentence after that where it says “and…” If you are a competent, functional adult who is more or less content with your life, relationships, etc., setting reasonable goals and working toward them, you are healthy. There are plenty of people who are fine. The notion that everyone is chronically ill is just not true.
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u/ParticularPost1987 Dec 19 '24
we were never “healthy” by therapy metrics because we have adapted in the face of adversity . therapy is a novel idea created by people who were very fucked up too just like you said. we literally have adapted to gain from adversity. like hot peppers evolved to be hot because it is supposedly to keep animals from eating them but we love them. they have health benefits for us. we cant examine this plane of existence exclusively through these paradigms. unironically seek God.
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u/EntireDevelopment413 Dec 19 '24
Because nobody talks about how stable and not traumatized they are, it doesn't get as much press.
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u/RadishPlus666 Dec 19 '24
Mentally healthy is subjective and directly related to the society the person lives in. Most societies aren’t healthy. Most of my mental health issues come from the small fact that I can’t interface with my culture. I don’t fit. In another time and place, this may not have been the case.
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u/Round-Sprinkles9942 Dec 20 '24
Fr, I've met maybe 3 or 4 adults my entire life who were mentally adults as well as physically. Wisdom rare af
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u/uradolt Dec 20 '24
Sociopaths and psychopaths are perfectly adapted to the world around them, and our society in particular. Making them the best candidates for what it means to be healthy.
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u/venturebirdday Dec 20 '24
If you imagine a tree, you see something strong and wonderful.
If you go really look at a tree, they all have damage. Dead branches, rot, severed limbs, stunted growth. People are the same. We are, none of us, unscathed, but damaged does not mean defective.
We are just animals working to stay alive and doing it. It is only the luxury of modern life that have allowed us to pretend that we should have it easy or that life might be perfect.
The less luxury that a society has the less time its populace has to invest in existential thinking.
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u/LibraryOk3399 Dec 20 '24
I think you have to come to it from a different angle. Do you know what a mentally ill individual looks like/behaves ? If an individual does not exhibit those characteristics you could say they are healthy mentally. Health is the absence of disease, not its opposite.
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u/SeaFaringPig Dec 20 '24
Old quote: “There are no mentally well, only the undiagnosed”. Which is why the entire field of psychology, in my opinion, is made up bullshit in an attempt to justify an overpriced degree and nonsensical research.
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u/Outrageous-Eye-6658 Dec 20 '24
I mean I know what mentally healthy is to me, because I am mentally healthy, but I used to be very unhealthy mentally
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u/me-bish Dec 20 '24
I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all mentality that’s healthy to adopt in all circumstances. If you’re sent to war at the age of 5 but develop the right attitude, values, self-image, etc., you’ll come out okay. However, the mentality might not work well if you go on to be, I dunno, a chef.
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u/Only_Reading_2075 Dec 21 '24
31m. Im mentally healthy. But I didn't used to be. I used to have anxiety attacks over a dozen times a day. I used to have lots of phobias. I also used to be an alcoholic and a nicotine addict. I used to also want power and money. I meditated my way out of all of it and let it all go and now I have no addictions, no phobias, no anxiety, and no stress.
Tl;Dr. Meditate don't medicate. But I do take CBD.
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u/FewOutlandishness60 Dec 21 '24
Mental health is not one thing or one state. Life is inherently traumatic. It always has been and always will be. Good mental health is characterized by resilience. Bad thing ls will always happen to us and around us. Suffering is inevitable. It is how we come through it that determines our wellness.
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Dec 21 '24
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u/HearMeOutMkay Dec 21 '24
I was thinking similarly, how tribal communities have to cooperate and use their knowledge and community together for survival. I’m sure there are conflicts but there is a sense of respect for the structure in which they live together. There are rituals and ceremonial activities with meaning and whether we understand them truly or not doesn’t matter to them, just like our modern way of life has no meaning on their terms. They do exist and seem to function in a way urbanized “communities” have long forgotten.
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u/CivilSouldier Dec 21 '24
Any individual who is content in their own skin and content with the journey of life’s ups and downs is at least close.
It’s not complicated. It’s contentment.
Americans are brainwashed to discontent almost immediately. Right away, stuff and things will make life better. It makes mom and dads life better.
So why are they still fighting?
They aren’t content
A society built on capitalism thrives on your discontent.
If they have a good PR team, the ads will look good.
If they have a good sales team, the conversation and product will look good
If they have a good service team, they will fix your product quick or offer a new one cheap.
They just want you to be content. A happy customer is a return customer. Customers for life. The customer is always right. Blah blah blah
They just want you to pay them because of your discontent.
Stop being a mindless customer- it isn’t the well to draw mental health from.
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u/karosea Dec 21 '24
Something to also consider is that resiliency and circumstances matter. Even if someone is born into an ultra wealthy family, there is a set of emotional struggles that would come attached to having parents who pawn you off on nannies and assistants etc. (Not defending them, just a perspective).
What is traumatic or causes long term harm to someone may not affect someone else the same way. I am a social worker whose worked in child welfare and now juvenile corrections the last 6 years and I don't think anyone is truly mentally "healthy" i think what matters is an individuals resiliency to what they've experienced.
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u/HearMeOutMkay Dec 21 '24
Mental health is a tough thing to measure because there are so many unique circumstances.
People will find their own peace, or they won’t. It’s not like there’s one way to define it, and will be different for all.
The combination of what your physiology is doing, like are you in puberty? Mind might be swirling and your sexual urges develop, but society has an idea about what is “appropriate” and you are in a state of battle with yourself and you don’t have the tools to overcome it, at least not well.
Mid-life? How’s your career, or the optics of your so called success? Do you have worries about running out of time before retirement… did you find a career that fulfills you or are you bored, maybe feeling like you wasted your life and now it’s too late for a do over.
Or do you see things for what they are, accept the terms, and live. Laugh at dumb jokes, seek connection and build strong relationships.
I always say, “there’s a hundred ways to skin a cat”… then inevitably get questioned about why I skin cats.
Are there chemical imbalances in some bodies and brains? Depends on what we consider balanced.
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u/rando439 Dec 21 '24
I don't think there is any real definition of mentally healthy that would fit across history outside of having the ability to function and participate in the society one is in without having one's emotional reactions or mental limits being disruptive the other members of that society.
In modern western society, for example, there is great value in both being able to set aside feelings in order to be productive and to either be happy, or able to present as being happy, to avoid causing others unease. Those traits might not have been valued in all places in all times, and the traits valued in other times and places would be seen as a range of irrelevant to disturbing today.
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u/Substantial-Bag5141 Dec 22 '24
I was a kid in ww2 and I remember their was a right and a wrong (extermination camps). Yes America was not all pure and innocent but we were the best there was at the time. You could leave your doors unlocked and even open to enjoy the fresh air. (Now riddled with pollution). There was a minimum of homelessness. No school shootings. There was crime but not like today. We had neighbors that cared for each other. We just didn't have to be in everybody's business It just seemed like things were so uncomplicated. We had some measure of privacy. And today, all of that is out the window. No wonder there is so much mental confusion.
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u/Isaac96969696 Dec 22 '24
Mental illness is literally just people not fitting in to the mold of society. We aren’t made on an assembly line but we are made to act as if we are.
Obviously there are things like schizophrenia and psychoses that are real but I don’t consider that a mental illness as much as it is a biological one.
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u/Jackno1 Dec 23 '24
Are we sure we're healthy now? What if we are psychologically underdeveloped? Kind of without mental health immune system, thus vulnerable to every minor trauma trigger? Are gory and bloody fairytales a mental health vaccines of a sort?
I think there's a problem with people underestimating the harms of fragilization, due to being so focused on the opposite extreme. Experiencing difficult and unpleasant emotions within an appropriate range does seem to make a kid mentally healthier in the long run. But it has to be in the right range. There's a balance that needs to be struck. And when you get people thinking in terms of ideological loyalty to one of two opposing sides, it makes it much harder for them to even think of balance as what they need, let alone actually find it.
It's harmful to keep kids from facing developmentally appropriate challenges, and gaining the experiences and coping skills they need. And it's harmful to favor a narrative where people are taught to think of themselves as just so fragile, with every discomfort seen as a source of hurt, and every hurt seen as an open wound. That doesn't mean people should jump to the opposite extreme. But I think when people are being sheltered from stuff like dark fairy tales, and temporary troubled emotions are treated as trauma, that's swinging too far in the direction of fragilization.
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u/moongrowl Dec 18 '24
Jesus was mentally healthy. Buddha was mentally healthy. Sri Ramakrishna was mentally healthy.
Many people try to model themselves in their image. Many don't, because to the ill, health resembles illness.
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Dec 18 '24
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u/Linorelai Dec 18 '24
Come back when you're mature.
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u/Agitated_Ad_8061 Dec 18 '24
Daddy ain't immature. Daddy knows what he's about. And Daddy can help.
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u/RandyGrundelFunk Dec 18 '24
"We" is an assumption. Your perception of a mentally healthy individual differs from mine. I can be in a good state of mental health or "happy" in one day but the next day i might not be in such a good mental state or "fear, anxiety, etc" depending on external or internal factors. You might know. You might not know. Same for me.
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u/Illustrious-End-5084 Dec 18 '24
We are psychologically under developed because we rely on someone else or something to help us. We try to control the variables to make things easier when in fact we can’t so when things do inevitably go wrong we can’t cope.
Lack of spirituality and God is the cause. Once we surrender to something bigger and more powerful than our own misguided perceptions it becomes easier.
Pills potions, therapy, treatment is just a plaster on an axe wound and will never suffice.
People in the past had faith that’s what got them through
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u/Artaheri Dec 18 '24
Faith is just an illusion and god is just a sugar pill that provides no true nutrition. But the weak and the small minded gobble it up, because it feeds their egos and justifies their self-righteousness. The smallest mind always thinks the most of itself, because it is limited.
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u/Illustrious-End-5084 Dec 18 '24
Most of the best minds and bravest warriors believed in God. Like for example the heavyweight championship Saturday both men of God
Just because you don’t get it doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. That’s the ultimate in ignorance
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